More evidence of NASA GISS tampering with temperature data, this time from Iceland, where data from the Iceland national weather service shows no warming over the second half of the 20th century, in comparison to GISS data which cools the past to create a false warming of 0.5 - 1.0 C:Google translation + light editing from the Swedish Stockholm's Initiative website:

In this guest post, Magnus Cederlöf shows how GISS "homogenized" a constant temperature from the 1950's - 2000's in Iceland to a rising temperature. One is amazed at the craftsmanship!

Temperature Adjustment for Iceland

By: Magnus Cederlöf

Several blog posts have dealt with temperature adjustments GISS for Iceland. See eg CG Ribbing post here or this from wattsupwiththat.com. I'll do this one more posts on this topic, where I compare the temperature series as Iceland's meteorological service (vedur.is) provides with those from GISS. GISS (Goddard Institute for Space Studies) is a research institute under NASA. GISS focuses on climate science and provide blah graphs and maps of temperature trends. The problem is that GISS has adjusted down the 1930's to 1940's warming period of the Icelandic temperature ranges. By doing so, it looks like the temperature has risen unnaturally over much of the past century. Using the Iceland National Weather Service data from vedur.is as the source, the development of temperature in Iceland is as follows.

Figure 1-10-year averages for a number of weather stations in Iceland according vedur.is *

All weather stations show similar trends. Therefore, one should not have to adjust the stations values ​​very much. Below all Icelandic stations, which has a longer time series, from GISSv3 :

Figure 2-10-year averages from Akureyri [Data from the Iceland National Weather Service shown in blue, GISS data shown in green and red has cooled the past]

Figure 3-10-year averages from Reykjavik [Data from the Iceland National Weather Service shown in blue, GISS data shown in green and red has cooled the past]

Figure 4-10-year averages from Stykkishólmur

Figure 5 - 10-year averages from Teigarhorn

The upshot of this is that GISS has lowered 1930's-1940's warm period in all temperature ranges. One could imagine that homogenized data so that some stations may be increased temperature and reduced temperature. But that is not the case. However, the curves show that the G SHARP call homogenized both reduced and elevated temperature if compared with the data from the homogenized series G SHARP. There are also significant gaps in the GISS data. These gaps are not in the data from vedur.is.

When dealing with the measurement data in this way, one can wonder about whether it is possible to draw any conclusions from them. Because they also often use nearby stations to extrapolate to areas where no stations exist, it is particularly serious that at temperatures from Iceland have been manipulated in this way. There are large sea areas around Iceland that these errors propagated to. To illustrate how wrong it is, one can use the function on GISS website to draw maps of temperature trends. If one considers Figure 1 we see that in 1958, the temperature is about as high as in 2000 (10-year averages). Feed it up a 10-year span around the year 1958 and compare it with a 10-year span around 2000 to get the GISS data, the following picture results:

Figure 6 - GISS estimate of the temperature rise between the decades around 1958 and 2000

GISS shows that the temperature rise in most of the Iceland should have been between 0.5 and 1 degrees. Iceland's own weather reports now show that the temperature increase between these years was zero . This image from GISS is understandable to the uninitiated, but it is also completely misleading. It is not only that Iceland is wrong. Presumably, the error propagated to a large part of the ocean around Iceland. One can then also wonder how many other areas that have similar errors.

* Footnote: There are two temperature ranges for each station on vedur.is. One very long time series, but ends in 2000, and the other has shorter time series and ends about the year 2008. These data sets are merged, although they do not have exactly the same values ​​for overlapping times. The difference is within a few tenths of a degree and therefore does not affect the conclusion of the analysis.

1. Temperatures at the center of Greenland are plunging at the rate of -.88C/yr or 8.8C per decade, according to the Wolfram Alpha analysis of all available data from station BGUQ,the station closest to the center of Greenland with the highest "inferred reliability":

According to AGW theory, the Arctic & Antarctic are the canaries in the coal mine for global warmingclimate changeclimate disruption climate destruction

Calling all swimmers! Here's how to coexist with our gelatinous friends.

More than 50 million Americans swim in the oceans every year (there are actual government surveys of such things). So if your summer plans involves stripping down and bathing in the sun and salt water of your dreams, read on, intrepid beach-goer. There's something gooey and stingy that's loving warm waters every bit as much as you are (maybe even more), turning those dreams...to nightmares: jellyfish.

Sunday, June 29, 2014

June 29, 2014 6:36 PM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Hank Paulson endorses a carbon tax. But is he right this time?

Hank Paulson Photo: Reuters

The climate change industry always needs a fresh angle, and the latest is that carbon emissions are an economic threat akin to mortgage-backed securities before the financial panic. The analogy comes from Hank Paulson—and if he has spotted a bubble this time, we guess one out of two is an improvement on zero out of one.

With the travelling billionaire wilburys of Tom Steyer and Michael Bloomberg, the former Treasury Secretary put out a 197-page study last week that predicts the costs of a warming catastrophe. Their "Risky Business" project is meant to awaken the green conscience of business leaders, and President Obama's endorsement was inevitable: Even George W. Bush's money man agrees . ..

The report reads like a prospectus, except with years of "investments" in fossil fuels returning damage across industries and regions. The authors estimate storms along the eastern seaboard and Gulf of Mexico will cost $2 billion to $3.5 billion more, while they also look at so-called "tail risks," or worst-case crises with a 1-in-100 chance of happening: New York City could be 6.8 feet underwater by century's end, crops could wither in heat waves by 42%, and so forth.

Mr. Paulson's particular contribution has been to summon the apparitions of the 2008 crash. He recently mused that his career in business and government taught him that "it is time to act before problems become too big to manage." The "climate bubble," as he puts it, is like the housing excesses that built up in the global financial markets and could lead to contagion.

CEOs might reasonably question Mr. Paulson's skills as a risk manager, given that as Treasury chief he went along with the Beltway flow and assured the public that Fannie and Freddie were in good shape until it was too late. And are there even amateur investors who are unaware that climate change is a matter of some political interest? Many public companies already embed a proxy cost of carbon when they invest and disclose material risks that climate change may or may not pose to their balance sheets.

"Risky Business" endorses a carbon tax, and that option really does share something with subprime loans and exotic financial instruments: Choosing to ration carbon today is a bet about the future—and one likely to end no better.

The world saw modest warming over the 20th century but temperatures have plateaued over the last 15 years or so, a pause the climate models did not predict and cannot explain. The climateers say the warming must be taking place deep in the ocean, which could be right but for which they have little evidence. There will always be inherent scientific uncertainty regarding a phenomenon as dynamic and complex as the Earth's climate, but the climateers admit to no uncertainty other than that the apocalypse might be worse.

As a business proposition, Mr. Paulson wants to gamble on new taxes and regulation to prevent even unlikely dangers—regardless of the costs and however minor the gains of U.S. decarbonization may turn out to be in practice. Yet China and the rest of the world will continue to rely on fossil fuels for decades as populations grow, economies expand and living standards rise.

Turning over the U.S. economy to the green central planners may expose the country to even greater climate harms, to the extent that their ministrations impede economic progress. A wealthier future society will be better able to adapt and mitigate harm over time if Mr. Paulson's side of the bet is right.

U.S. emissions have fallen to 1994 levels in large part because of the unconventional natural gas revolution, which burns cleaner than coal. That revolution might never have happened in a world of heavy carbon taxes. And the capital necessary to finance this and other innovation will be less available in a less prosperous country.

Speculators like Mr. Paulson are actually inflating a climate regulation bubble—and the real danger isn't that the problem is too big to manage. It's their supposed solution.

Warmist Graham Readfearn of The Guardian has a piece today titled, "What really annoys scientists about the state of the climate change debate?," in which he interviews the usual alarmist suspects such as Michael Mann and Stefan Rahmstorf about "what is it that really gets them annoyed?"

Mann is ticked off that

"model projections have underestimated the rate and magnitude of the climate changes resulting from our burning of fossil fuels"

such as the zero global warming over the past 18 years. He's also most pissed off that "Rather than being cause for inaction, uncertainty is a reason to act all the sooner."

Rahmstorf says

"One of the phrases that makes me cringe is when I read in the media that a particular extreme weather event "is no evidence for climate change". This is so bad it's not even wrong, but it is quite misleading."

"I want some of our decision-makers and commentators to either shut up, or familiarise themselves with climate science well enough to talk sense."

apparently unfamiliar with the concepts of free speech, scientific or political debate.

Michael Raupach says

"humankind is encountering the finitude of our planet"

i.e. the end of the planet is near and we're not doing enough.

Roger Jones is pissed off about a lot of things including

I can buy disaffected scientists to deny sound science with a plane fare to a bogus conference and a little publicity.

Andrew Glickson is most upset about "irreversible tipping points," which have never occurred in Earth's 3.5 billion year history with CO2 levels 17-25 times higher than the present. Sophie Lewis thinks

"Dismissing the link between climate change and extremes as hogwash leaves us vulnerable to a warmer climate."

while ignoring thatthere is no evidence that climate has become more variable or extreme, paleoclimate evidence shows extreme weather is more common during cold periods, and many climate models predict less extreme weather in a warmer climate. Illuminating that these scientists are most upset about politics and one-sided scientific arguments with scant scientific evidence to back them up, and for which ample conflicting evidence exists. Readfearn's article, with [added comments, highlights, graphs, and links]:

From misinformed politicians who should 'shut up', to a failure of large parts of society to grasp reality, climate scientists reveal their bugbears

Protesters at the office of a US senator who doubts the evidence of human-caused climate change.

“Don’t shoot the messenger,” so the saying goes.

But what if that message warns we might want to rethink that whole fossil fuel burning thing pretty quick because it could seriously alter civilization and the natural world for centuries to come, and not in a good way?

Time to get the bullets out and start firing, obviously.

Climate scientists have been trying to dodge, catch or deflect those bullets for decades.

They are now all too used to being shot at, kicked and maligned as their findings are misunderstood, misrepresented, trivialised or booted around like footballs between politicians and other warring ideological factions and self-interested industry groups.

But if they had to pick one thing, what is it that really gets them annoyed?

When the public tries to understand the implications of their scientific findings – or just understand the findings themselves – what’s the most common mistake they see?

When the media gets hold of their findings, what makes climate scientists chuck a shoe, ice core or physics textbook at the screen in frustration?

I decided to ask a few leading climate scientists from around the globe to articulate that one thing that leaves them totally tacked off.

Some struggled to pick only a single bugbear (one even called to apologise for taking too long, so spoilt for choice were they), others took the chance to uncompromisingly unload their frustrations.

Here’s what they had to say.

Professor Andrew Pitman, director of the Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science, University of New South Wales, Sydney

Many people who would not dream to claim they understand how antibiotics, microprocessors or immunisations work seem happy to wax lyrical on their views on climate change.

A politician or media identity who would be laughed out of office if they said “vaccines don't work" or “I am certain the moon is made of cheese" happily speak equivalent rubbish on climate science, believing their views deserve credit.

I want engineers to build bridges; I want a trained surgeon to operate on hearts and I want some of our decision-makers and commentators to either shut up, or familiarise themselves with climate science well enough to talk sense.

Professor Michael Mann, director of Penn State Earth System Science Center, United States

If there’s one concept that is typically misrepresented in the public discourse on climate change, it is the concept of uncertainty.

There are uncertainties in model projections of future climate change. However, these uncertainties cut both ways, and in many cases it appears that model projections have underestimated the rate and magnitude of the climate changes resulting from our burning of fossil fuels and emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The rapid lost of Arctic sea ice is one such example.

Rather than being cause for inaction, uncertainty is a reason to act all the sooner.

Notes for Michael Mann: 97% of the climate models have exaggerated, not "underestimated the rate and magnitude of the climate changes resulting from our burning of fossil fuels and emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere." Arctic sea ice has essentially stabilized since 2007 while Antarctic sea ice is at record highs. Global sea ice is significantly above the satellite era average.

Global sea ice is significantly above the long-term average

Professor Michael Raupach, director of the Climate Change Institute, Australian National University, Canberra

The greatest cause for sorrow is the widespread inability of the public discussion to recognise the whole picture.

Much of the political discourse reduces the complexities of climate change to political football (“axe the tax”); much media reporting sees only the hook to today’s passing story; many interest groups want to use climate change to proselytise for their particular get-out-of-jail free card (nuclear power, carbon farming).

All of this misses or trivialises the real, systemic significance of climate change: that humankind is encountering the finitude of our planet, [the end is near] confronting the need to share and protect our endowment from nature, and realising that much will have to change to make this possible.

Professor Richard Betts, chair in Climate Impacts at the College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter, UK

The thing that bugs me most about the way climate change is talked about in the media is journalists citing scientific papers without providing a link to the original paper.

Readers often want to get more details or simply check sources, but this is very difficult (or sometimes impossible) if the source is not given. I've raised this a few times, and get lame excuses like 'readers get frustrated when the journals are paywalled' but that's not good enough. Media should provide sources – end of.

Professor Steven Sherwood, director of the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales, Sydney

Where to start?

These are things I don’t see (or don’t see enough).

First is still that, even though it is clear greenhouse gas emissions raise the temperature of the Earth, we’ve known this for 50+ years and no reputable atmospheric scientist in the world disputes this, most people think scientists disagree. They’ve been misled by the media, and I’ve been told repeatedly by reporters in the US and Australia that this is due to pressure from management.

Second is the fact that carbon dioxide emissions are effectively irreversible and will stay in the climate system for hundreds of generations is seldom noted. [false]If we decide later that this was a huge mistake there is no going back (practically speaking).

On the political side, I wish the media would note the obvious parallels of the carbon debate with past ones over restricting pollutants (mercury, lead, asbestos, CFCs), where claims that restrictions would be economically catastrophic never came true.

These are things I do see that bug me.

One would be phrases like “action on climate change”. We should be talking about “action on carbon dioxide” — and climate is only one reason (albeit the biggest) that too much of it is dangerous. Nothing we do with respect to any other influence on climate will prevent global warming if CO2 keeps climbing.

One of the phrases that makes me cringe is when I read in the media that a particular extreme weather event "is no evidence for climate change". This is so bad it's not even wrong, but it is quite misleading.

Climate change is a measured fact seen in rising temperatures, vanishing ice, rising sea levels etc. - it needs no further evidence. [Yes it does, namely the cause of climate change, natural or AGW] And a single extreme event cannot possibly provide such evidence, because climate change increases the number of certain extremes. Some, like heat waves, have already increased massively thanks to global warming.

US Heat waves were much more common in the 1930's:

Professor Roger Jones, research fellow at the Centre for Strategic and Economic Studies at Victoria University, Melbourne

Who am I?

I can be sued for calling a public individual fraudulent but not a whole scientific community or organisation – because climate scientists and the IPCC are fraudulent.

I can publish proven lies in my newspaper day after day with no penalty.

I can buy disaffected scientists to deny sound science with a plane fare to a bogus conference and a little publicity.

I can anonymously threaten researchers online, especially the female ones.

If anyone threatens me with facts, I can call them an antidemocratic, anti-jobs, McCarthyist, communist, anti-freedom, pagan environmentalist.

Everyone says there is no consensus.

I deny everything.

Dr Sophie Lewis, research fellow in the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Melbourne

I get annoyed when I hear yet another politician arguing that we can’t link extreme events to climate change. You know the spurious reasoning? Australia’s always had heatwaves/floods/fires, so this recent extreme is nothing to worry about. When I hear this, it’s time to turn off the TV.

Climate scientists don’t just guess at what contributed to recent extremes. We methodically calculate changes in the risk of extremes due to human factors, like greenhouse gases. I don’t just get irate out of principle.

Dismissing the link between climate change and extremes as hogwash leaves us vulnerable to a warmer climate. [see above comments on extremes]

Dr Andrew Glikson, visiting fellow at the School of Archaeology and Anthropology, Australian National University

I think the scale of the changes being seen now when compared to the Earth's history is something the media and the public do not appreciate. Earth's history is marked by a number of major mass extinctions of species, triggered by volcanic eruptions, asteroid impacts and release of methane from sediments.

Major shifts in the state of the climate were caused either by pulsations in solar radiation or by release of carbon from the Earth. In each of these events a marked rise occurred in the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

As the level of energy and temperature of the atmosphere increased, irreversible tipping points were reached where the synergy of feedback processes – ice melt, warming water, released methane, droughts and fires - combined to shift the climate from one state to the next.

The current rise in energy of the atmosphere above that of pre-industrial times, by about 3 Watt per square meter, is about half that of the atmospheric energy rise during the last transition from glacial to interglacial state.

The current shift is threatening to bring about irreversible tipping points in the climate, with the most serious consequences, likely indicated by the increase over the last 20 years or so in the intensity of extreme weather events around the globe.

The current rise of atmospheric CO2 at a rate of near-three parts per million per year exceeds rates recorded in the history of the atmosphere for the last 55 million years, which retards the ability of species to adapt to environmental change in time.

Note the discontinuity of CO2 and temperature over geologic time scales, as well as no "irreversible tipping points" with CO2 levels more than 17 times higher than the present

A consequent shift from conditions, which have allowed agriculture to take place from about 8,000 years ago, would render large parts of the continents unsuitable for cultivation.

President Obama has mocked Republicans who oppose his climate agenda as flat-earthers. Perhaps he'll be more charitable to Democrats who are protesting California's cap-and-trade program as an undue burden on the poor.

Last week 16 Democratic Assembly Members—about 30% of their caucus—signed a letter urging California Air Resources Board chairwoman Mary Nichols to delay or redesign the state's cap-and-trade program. "We are concerned about the impact of the AB 32 cap-and-trade program on our constituents," they write, adding that "many of the areas we represent are still struggling with double digit unemployment."

Large manufacturers and power plants must now either purchase permits or cut their emissions to comply with a state-mandated cap, which over time will be ratcheted down. Starting next year, transportation fuel suppliers will also have to pony up for permits.

Assembly Democrats fear that applying cap and trade to fuels "will cause an immediate jump in prices at the pump." While estimates vary, "an increase of about fifteen cents per gallon is likely and a much larger jump is possible." Senate President Darrell Steinberg has warned that gas prices could shoot up by 40 cents per gallon..

California's gas prices, which typically run 40 to 50 cents above the national average, are already the highest in the continental U.S. due to the state's fuel blending requirements and taxes—which also top the other 49 states. The Boston Consulting Group predicted in 2012 that cap and trade and the state's carbon fuel standard would drive up gas prices between $0.49 and $1.83 per gallon by 2020. These green regulations are intended to raise the cost of gas to encourage people to drive less or buy electric cars.

But as the Assembly Democrats point out, cap and trade is "hurting the most vulnerable members of our communities." Most of the letter's 16 signatories represent heavily minority and low-income regions in Los Angeles, the Central Valley and Inland Empire. Nine are black or Latino.

As they explain, cap and trade's carbon permitting "was not intended to be a funding mechanism for massive, new State efforts at GHG [greenhouse gas] reductions." They don't identify any programs by name, but this year's budget appropriates $250 million of the proceeds from carbon permit auctions, and 25% of all future revenues, for high-speed rail. The state budget analyst predicts the auctions will raise between $12 billion and $45 billion in revenue by 2020.

These Democrats are now echoing an argument that the California Chamber of Commerce makes in its lawsuit against the state's Air Resources Board. To wit, cap-and-trade revenues constitute an illegal tax.

It's nice to see some California liberals place the interest of their poor constituents over the party's rich, Tesla-driving friends. If only Governor Jerry Brown and President Obama would do the same.

Settled science: According to a paper published today in Atmospheric Science Letters, global precipitation has either decreased, increased, or not changed over the past 30 years, depending upon which of 3 global datasets are examined:

"Decadal trends of global precipitation are examined using the Climate Prediction Center (CPC) Merged Analysis of Precipitation (CMAP), Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP), and National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP)/National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) reanalysis data. The decadal trends of global precipitation average diverge a decreasing trend for the CMAP data, a flat trend for the GPCP data, and an increasing trend for the reanalysis data."

Thus, the actual trend of global precipitation, if any, remains a mystery. Several peer-reviewed papers have shown climate models are unable to simulate decadal trends in precipitation, unable to simulate regional trends in precipitation, and that the claim "wet gets wetter, dry gets drier" is without basis.

Decadal trends of global precipitation are examined using the Climate Prediction Center (CPC) Merged Analysis of Precipitation (CMAP), Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP), and National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP)/National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) reanalysis data. The decadal trends of global precipitation average diverge a decreasing trend for the CMAP data, a flat trend for the GPCP data, and an increasing trend for the reanalysis data. The decreasing trend for the CMAP data is associated with the reduction in high precipitation. The flat trend for the GPCP data is related to the offset between the increase in high precipitation and the decrease in low precipitation. The increasing trend for the reanalysis data corresponds to the increase in high precipitation.

Settled science: A new paper published in Science has discovered "giant "whirlpools" in the ocean, up to 500 kilometres across, are driving the world's climate on a scale previously unimagined. We just don't know exactly how yet."

These giant 'whirlpools', called mesoscale eddies, were previously thought to

"hardly do anything to the climate. Now, for the first time, the amount of water and heat they carry has been measured and it turns out the eddies have a big effect after all."

"It's not clear what this means for the weather, but it is likely to be significant. Some of the world's biggest sources of climate variability, such as the El Niño Southern Oscillation, are powered by heat moving around the oceans, driven by wind and ocean currents. The eddies could have similar effects, says Qiu, and once we understand them it should help us create more accurate predictions of the regional effects of climate change.

"It's also unclear how the eddies will affect weather in the future. It will depend on how climate change affects them, which Qiu says they haven't looked at yet."

Amazing what climate scientists can discover about natural climate change by making measurements and observations instead of assuming what "the consensus" previously believed to be true. The junk output of climate models does not incorporate very important natural phenomena such as these newly discovered large eddies or ocean and atmospheric oscillations, which are the true drivers of weather and climate, not CO2.

Giant "whirlpools" in the ocean, up to 500 kilometres across, are driving the world's climate on a scale previously unimagined. We just don't know exactly how yet.

The bodies of swirling water, called mesoscale eddies, are 100 km to 500 km in diameter. They form when patches of water are destabilised by obstacles like islands. The eddies carry huge volumes of water and heat across the oceans, until they slowly stop spinning over days or months and reintegrate with the surrounding water.

The assumption was that they gradually diffused the heat they carried in all directions as they travelled, which would hardly do anything to the climate. Now, for the first time, the amount of water and heat they carry has been measured and it turns out the eddies have a big effect after all.Bo Qiu at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu and colleagues used satellite data from 1992 to 2010 to spot eddies, and floating sensors to map their shapes, volumes and temperatures.

The team found the eddies move as much water as the biggest ocean currents. They mostly move west, driven by the spinning of the Earth. As a result, over 30 million tonnes of water arrive on the east coasts of continents every second.

Westward water

"The amount of water they can carry westward was a huge surprise," says Qiu.

It's not clear what this means for the weather, but it is likely to be significant. Some of the world's biggest sources of climate variability, such as the El Niño Southern Oscillation, are powered by heat moving around the oceans, driven by wind and ocean currents. The eddies could have similar effects, says Qiu, and once we understand them it should help us create more accurate predictions of the regional effects of climate change.

For instance, eddy-driven currents are probably exacerbating extreme weather around Japan, says Wenju Cai from CSIRO in Melbourne, Australia. Warm water carried by the giant Kuroshio current drives extreme weather, and the eddies carry even more warm water, making the weather worse.

It's also unclear how the eddies will affect weather in the future. It will depend on how climate change affects them, which Qiu says they haven't looked at yet.

It may be that the eddies get bigger and more common in a warmer world. They are the ocean equivalent of storms, and since storms and hurricanes are predicted to become more powerful due to the extra heat energy, the eddies might too. [It may also be that eddies get smaller and less common in a warmer world. Temperature differentials drive all weather, not absolute temperatures, and AGW theory predicts temperature differentials between the poles and equator will decrease. This is why climate models also predict a decrease of cyclones and storm activity over the 21st century:

Oceanic transports of heat, salt, and fresh water, dissolved CO2 and other tracers regulate global climate change and distribution of natural marine resources. While the time-mean ocean circulation transports fluid as a conveyor belt, fluid parcels can also be trapped and transported discretely by migrating mesoscale eddies. By combining available satellite altimetry and Argo profiling float data, we show that the eddy-induced zonal mass transport can reach a total meridionally integrated value up to 30-40 Sv (1 Sv = 106 m3 s−1), and it occurs mainly in subtropical regions where the background flows are weak. This transport is comparable in magnitude with that of the large-scale, wind- and thermohaline-driven circulation.

Thursday, June 26, 2014

A paper published today in the Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics finds long-term observational evidence corroborating Svensmark's cosmic ray theory of climate. According to the authors, the "Sun influences the formation of clouds and rainfall activity through Galactic Cosmic Ray mediation" and "Solar control on the Indian Summer Monsoon rainfall, cloud liquid water content, and integrated water vapor is observed over India during 1977–2012."

Wavelet analyses also indicate a solar control on ISM rainfall, LWC & IWV over India.

Abstract

A long-term observation over three solar cycles indicates a perceptible influence of solar activity on rainfall and associated parameters in the Indian region. This paper attempts to reveal the solar control on the cloud liquid water content (LWC) and integrated water vapor (IWV) along with Indian Summer Monsoon (ISM) rainfall during the period of 1977–2012 over nine different Indian stations. Cloud LWC and IWV are positively correlated with each other. An anti-correlation is observed between the Sunspot Number (SSN) and ISM rainfall for a majority of the stations and a poor positive correlation obtained for other locations. Cloud LWC and IWV possess positive correlations with Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCR) and SSN respectively for most of the stations. The wavelet analyses of SSN, ISM rainfall, cloud LWC and IWV have been performed to investigate the periodic characteristics of climatic parameters and also to indicate the varying relationship of solar activity with ISM rainfall, cloud LWC and IWV. SSN, ISM rainfall and IWV are found to have a peak at around 10.3 years whereas a dip is observed at that particular period for cloud LWC.

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

A paper published today in Nature finds sea levels during a "super interglacial" around 400,000 years ago "potentially had a global mean sea level 6 to 13 metres [20-43 feet] above the present level" and the South Greenland ice sheet "was drastically smaller during MIS 11 than it is now, with only a small residual ice dome over southernmost Greenland."

How did that happen when CO2 was "safe"?

There is no evidence to suggest that sea level changes and ice sheet collapse during the current interglacial are unprecedented, unusual, or unnatural in comparison to prior interglacials.

Varying levels of boreal summer insolation and associated Earth system feedbacks led to differing climate and ice-sheet states during late-Quaternary interglaciations. In particular, Marine Isotope Stage (MIS)11 was an exceptionally long interglaciation and potentially had a global mean sea level 6 to 13metres [20-43 feet] above the present level around 410,000 to 400,000years ago1, 2, implying substantial mass loss from the Greenland ice sheet (GIS). There are, however, no model simulations and only limited proxy data3, 4 to constrain the magnitude of the GIS response to climate change during this ‘super interglacial’5, thus confounding efforts to assess climate/ice-sheet threshold behaviour6, 7 and associated sea-level rise1, 2. Here we show that the south GIS was drastically smaller during MIS11 than it is now, with only a small residual ice dome over southernmost Greenland. We use the strontium–neodymium–lead isotopic composition of proglacial sediment discharged from south Greenland to constrain the provenance of terrigenous silt deposited on the Eirik Drift, a sedimentary deposit off the south Greenland margin. We identify a major reduction in sediment input derived from south Greenland’s Precambrian bedrock terranes, probably reflecting the cessation of subglacial erosion and sediment transport8 as a result of near-complete deglaciation of south Greenland. Comparison with ice-sheet configurations from numerical models7,9, 10, 11, 12 suggests that the GIS lost about 4.5 to 6metres of sea-level-equivalent volume during MIS11. This is evidence for late-Quaternary GIS collapse after it crossed a climate/ice-sheet stability threshold that may have been no more than several degrees above pre-industrial temperatures6, 7.